My Wives are Beautiful Demons-Chapter 687: Analyze

The collision doesn't generate an explosion.

It generates persistence.

Medusa doesn't retreat after the impact. She remains glued to the true Aegis like a shadow that refuses to let go, her serpentine body writhing in increasingly unorthodox, increasingly aggressive movements. The petrified Yamato descends, rises, spins, no longer seeking clear openings, but forcing the world to create one.

She attacks from the wrong angles.

Wrong according to any manual.

Wrong according to any classic divine strategy.

Athena defends.

Always.

The Aegis moves before the blow arrives, intercepting blades, tails, frontal charges, and twisting attacks with the same cold efficiency. Each impact is absorbed, redirected, neutralized. The field trembles, but the goddess remains firm, her feet anchored in reality as if it were just another chessboard.

But her eyes…

move.

They analyze.

Medusa senses it.

And something inside her breaks even further.

"Stop looking at me like that!" she growls, her voice echoing in multiple tones, as if several versions of herself were speaking at once. "Stop measuring me like a problem to be solved!"

She pushes her body beyond its previous limit. Her tail bends at impossible angles, launching her torso high as she spins on her own axis, the Yamato descending in a vertical strike that carries spiritual energy so dense that the air screams around the blade.

Athena raises the Aegis.

Blocks.

The impact pushes the goddess back a few centimeters.

Slightly.

But new.

Medusa laughs.

Now loud.

Now broken.

"See?!" she screams, her eyes gleaming with a mixture of ecstasy and hatred. "I can move you!"

She doesn't give her time.

Attacks again.

And again.

And again.

Each blow is heavier than the last, not because she's becoming more technical, but because she's allowing herself to be less restrained. The spiritual energy ceases to flow in patterns learned from Artemis and begins to respond directly to instinct, trauma, accumulated fury.

The marks on her scales shine brighter, symbols distorting, rewriting themselves, as if Medusa's own spirit were being reformatted in real time by the violence of the decision.

Athena doesn't attack.

She defends.

She observes.

"Interesting…" she murmurs, more to herself than to her opponent.

She spins the Aegis, redirecting a blow that would have crushed her shoulder, and takes a half-step to the side, forcing Medusa to miss the axis of her own attack. The Gorgon's tail slams against the ground, opening a crater.

"You're getting faster," Athena continues, her voice cold, clinical. "Stronger. But also more predictable."

Medusa growls. "Lies."

She lunges again, now in an erratic pattern, alternating heights, speeds, rhythms. She attacks from above, glides from below, uses her own tail as a whip to force the Aegis to move, trying to create a microscopic opening.

Athena blocks everything.

But now… with more effort.

Her arm vibrates with each impact. The conceptual weight of the Aegis remains absolute, but the frequency of the attacks begins to strain her reaction time. Not enough to hurt her—yet—but enough to demand total attention.

Vergil tilts his head slightly.

"She's burning," he comments softly. "But she's burning too fast to be ignored."

Medusa feels the fatigue.

She ignores it.

The dark blood flows more freely now, the scales opening in some places, but the pain doesn't slow her down. On the contrary. It fuels her.

"You know what else I learned from Artemis?" She screams, lunging forward again, the Yamato vibrating in an almost shrill tone. "Hunting things bigger than me."

She coils around her own blade, using the elasticity of her body to propel a spiraling strike, charged with spiritual energy concentrated to its limit. The attack isn't aimed directly at Athena.

It's aimed at time.

Athena raises the Aegis.

She defends.

But this time… the impact sends her sliding backward.

A full step.

The entire coliseum holds its breath.

Athena stops.

She looks at Medusa more closely.

Not as a mistake.

Not as a variable.

But as a phenomenon on the rise.

"Fascinating…" she admits. "You're not getting stronger because you're winning."

She adjusts her stance, planting her feet more firmly. "You're getting stronger because you don't care if you lose."

Medusa smiles.

Now… completely broken down. "Finally, she understood."

Athena takes a deep breath.

It's not tiredness.

It's a conclusion.

The world around her seems to slow down for a single instant—not because time obeys the goddess, but because she has finished observing. All the variables that still mattered have been collected. Every micro-shift of Medusa's tail, every oscillation in the frequency of the petrified Yamato, every irregular peak of spiritual energy has been recorded, correlated, understood.

Athena doesn't smile.

She decides.

"I understand," she says, finally.

The word carries no contempt. Nor admiration. It is neutral, absolute, like a mathematical sentence finally solved.

Medusa advances again, driven by the same growing fury, the same refusal to stop. Her tail contracts violently and her entire body lunges forward, the Yamato descending in a direct blow, without curve, without deception—pure impact, pure intention.

This time…

Athena does not raise the Aegis.

She takes a sideways step.

The blow passes where she was.

And misses.

Before Medusa can react, Athena moves. Not with brute force, but with surgical precision. The Aegis emerges at an impossible angle, not to block, but to collide with the side of the serpentine body. The impact does not throw Medusa away—it disrupts her axis, breaks her sequence, forces her body to spin incorrectly.

Athena advances.

Now, she attacks.

The shield moves like a broad blade, striking specific points: joints between scales, regions where excessive elasticity creates fractions of a second of vulnerability. Each blow doesn't seek to wound deeply—it seeks to disrupt.

Medusa tries to respond.

Too late.

Athena is already one step ahead.

"Your strength grows when you ignore your own survival," says the goddess, while dodging a counterattack that never quite forms. "But your structure… doesn't keep up with that choice."

She spins her body, the shield striking the base of Medusa's tail with enough force to make her lose support for an instant. The ground cracks. The serpentine body collides, slides, tries to recompose itself.

Athena gives no space.

She moves with a cold, almost cruel fluidity. Each step forces Medusa to react in a specific way—and each reaction is exactly as expected.

"You accelerate when you feel pressure," Athena continues, blocking a vertical strike with the edge of the Aegis and responding with a direct impact to the torso. "You repeat patterns when you feel anger. And when you feel pain…"

She strikes again.

"…you expose yourself."

Medusa growls, tries to back away, use the terrain, but Athena has already anticipated. A golden symbol emerges from beneath the ground, not as a seal, but as a boundary. An invisible limit that reduces options, forces bad choices.

Vergil narrows his eyes.

"She's closing the space," he murmurs. "Not with power. With logic."

Medusa attacks in desperation, a brutal, chaotic sequence, charged with everything that remains. The Yamato vibrates, the air tears, spiritual energy explodes in irregular waves.

Athena blocks the first blow.

Dodges the second.

On the third, she enters the range.

The impact of the Aegis on Medusa's face is not explosive.

It's final. The sound echoes like a cracked bell. The Gorgon's body is thrown backward, rolling across the ground, scales shattering, the Yamato slipping from her hand a few meters.

Silence.

Medusa tries to stand.

Her body responds… poorly.

Athena walks towards her.

Unhurriedly.

"You confused madness with freedom," says the goddess, stopping a few steps away. "You confused absence of fear with absence of limits."

She raises the true Aegis. The light that emanates now is not oppressive—it is clear, defined, impossible to ignore.

"Wisdom is not just knowing more," Athena continues. "It's knowing when to stop."

Medusa laughs.

Weakly.

Hoarsely.

"Are you going to kill me, then?" she asks, spitting dark blood on the ground. "To prove you were always right?"

Athena tilts her head slightly.

"No."

She lowers the Aegis.

But not to attack.

She plants it in the ground.

The impact reverberates, and the field responds. Symbols rearrange themselves, the space stabilizes, the pressure decreases abruptly.

Medusa's eyes widen.

"I'm not here to erase you" says Athena firmly. "I'm here to stop you from destroying yourself thinking that's victory."

She turns her back.

"The analysis is over. The counterattack is over too."

Vergil watches in silence, his smile slowly fading into something more serious.

"Hm…" he murmurs. "That was… elegant."

Medusa remains on the ground, breathing heavily, her body trembling not from fear, but from frustration. She was not defeated by force.

It was understood.

And this… this hurts more.

Athena takes a few steps back and then stops, without turning around.

"Medusa" she says, one last time. "Anger took you far. But it won't take you any further."

The field quiets down.

The battle is over.

"Have you had your fun?"

Vergil's voice didn't echo across the field.

She was born behind Athena — too intimate, too close — as if she had always been there and only now had decided to be heard.

Her world jolted.

'—!'

Athena reacted reflexively, trying to move away, turn her body, summon the Aegis — anything —, but there was no time.

Hands closed around hers from behind.

Firm. Precise. Impossible to ignore.

Vergil held her with disconcerting ease, his fingers fitting around her wrists as if he knew exactly where to press to stop any countermovement without causing harm… yet.

"Analyzed very well…" his voice slid close to her ear, low, almost polite—and dangerously close. "Perfect corrections. Flawless reading."

Athena felt a shiver run down her spine.

Not fear.

Conceptual violation.

"But you forgot one basic variable," he continued, leaning in a little closer, his tone almost amused. "Me."

Her divine heart skipped a beat.

She forced her perception outward, expanding her consciousness in all directions at once—and then she saw.

Vergil.

Sitting.

In the same place as before.

Arms crossed.

Watching.

Intact.

'—A clone?!' the thought surged sharply, immediately.